Gray Barn

After I finish a painting and the weather is nice, and I have some spare time, I go out with my camera.  The things I shoot then may never see any follow through - others though, get selected for a painting.  The file I keep these photos in is called, “Photos for Paintings.”  

I selected this photo from that file because of the simple lines and the clarity of the scene.  It is all right there, no real mystery.  I suppose that there might be some mystery around the fence lines since they all run into the same plane and also, maybe in the black barn interior.  This is just what you see when you drive around Washington County in New York State.  I almost didn’t put the cows in the scene.  But finally, I did, perhaps because it needed some more mystery and these small areas of pure black divided by a fence slat added that vagueness but completeness to the scene.

People say my paintings look like photographs.  Well, I am a slave to the image I photograph (unless it suits me to not be) and because of that I tried, in this, to be somewhat more vague.  I even added a thin red line around many of the edges of the broader compositional units to throw people off the scent of “reality.”  That also turned into a dilemma unsolved.  Once I started to draw the red line I saw that it could (should?) go here and here and here…well you get the idea.  Then I thought - “Fuck it!  I’m an artist, I can do what I want to.”  So, that’s why there is a red line around the larger areas and not every area.  Oh, and why the red line in the first place?  Answer:  It’s my painting and that’s what I wanted to do.


​Medium: Acrylic Paint on Canvas
Not framed presently
Size: 20" x 27"

Price: $700.00 (Price does not include applicable sales tax or shipping)